8/18/2005 @ 6:00PM

Methodology

Our rankings of business schools are based on the return on investment that graduates of the Class of 2000 received.

We sent surveys to 25,000 alumni of 111 M.B.A. programs around the world and heard back from 24% of them.

We asked for their pre-M.B.A. salaries as well as compensation figures for three of the first five years after getting their degrees. We compared their post-M.B.A. compensation with their opportunity cost (tuition and forgone salary while in school) and what they would have made had they stayed in their old jobs.

We adjusted salary figures to account for cost-of-living expenses and discounted the earnings gains, using a rate tied to money market yields.